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Has anyone beside me found there to be a corrilation (spelling might be off) between Kangaroo hide arriving and the common cold that keeps you home from work?? Hehehe sure glad my sore throat doesn't effect my being able to cut and bevel hide. Now I can get started working on my project again. And Bevan, I'm getting better with your tool. It worked really good on the two hides I got, no problems at all and with me getting better I was able to get alot more lace out of each hide. Got about 160 foot of black lace and about 145 out of the whisky. Thats atleast 50 foot more then what I got out of a hide on the second time cutting lace, so shouldn't be any reason to not have enought lace to finish up the project now.

Howdy, Thanks for looking and asking me questions so that I can get better results. No I didn't do any tighting on the turnback knot. Darn it I thought that this was one of the kind of buttons that they got tight on their own and didn't require tighting and since it was getting hard to pull the lace through expecially where it tapers down I thought it was tight,,,,,shoot shoot shoot !!!! When I get my new hides in, I will probably just redo the end knots and try and add some red to it where the knot is wider, I've been trying to read up on how to do that while in limbo waiting for roo to show up. I was thinking about trying to add the red in now on what I have and with you seeing that they look loose I might just give that a try since it would give me something to do and if it doesn't work and comes apart no loss. Thanks you gave me the motivation to try something new. Thanks for taking notice and giving feedback your greatly appriciated. My plan was to make these and other gear matching set then trade it for a filly that I want from a cowboy I ride with some. He already has the hobbles that will match but with me being a rookie at cutting, beveling ect....LOL this set of reins is going to end up costing me about 500.00 in roo plus all my time. So I just might need to keep these for myself since I will be the only one that will appriciate the time, effort and money put into it. In hopes of in the future being able to make items that are worth more then what I put into them. LOL Thanks again for your feedback.

Well here is what stage the rein project is in now. I'm now at a stand still, I'm going to order a black hide and whisky hide. I decided to braid the romal before doing the buttons on the reins which I'm very glad that I did, since after getting the romal done I have found myself very short on black lace and have not even close to enough whisky I would have to now do all the buttons in red. Looking at the red on black with the knot that I did on the rein connectors I just didn't think that I could bring myself to put all red buttons on the reins and romal. I might even take apart the turnback knots and redo them with a bit of red in them. Its putting me to a stop at the molment but hopefully in the long run the extra time and effort will pay off with something that I will be more proud of. Well sending ya the new pictures so that you can see where I'm at and to see if anyone can offer any advice that would help me. Thanks.

Looks good I like it.

Nice, Clean and a office with a window. LOL my work shop is still my dinning room table and my couch.

Thanks all I will keep plugging away at it then and see what I end up with. Hoping that I have enough lace to have a Finished product. I think I will go ahead and braid up the romal before doing all the buttons that way if I don't have enough lace its probably easier to try and match lace for buttons then it is to match it for braiding something longer. Thanks again, glad I'm on the right track.

Howdy all !!! I'm back from my vaccation and thought that I would show ya what I worked on while off work, hanging out at the lake inbetween catching fish. I'm going to try and make a pair of roo reins but whow I'm not sure even with the three hides that I cut into lace that I will have enough. LOL I must really have wasted alot of roo. The brown hide I got 117 foot of 1/8 inch lace, Black hide got 108 foot 1/8 lace and red hide got 93 foot of lace. So the brown hide was the only one that I had enough of to make the reins with, will put black buttons on and then will hopefully have enough black to make the romal and use the red for buttons on it. Do ya think with the color combo that it will look ok?? Or should I just try and save up and try and get in another hide of brown and do it all in the one color?? I've not done enough projects to know what colors look good, and if you all see how I dress myself LOL then you would understand that I'm not much into matching colors. I took a few pictures of the start of the project. On the cowboy buttons covering the turnback I have not rolled the buttons yet since I don't want to cut the lace just incase someone sees that I've done it all wrong and need to re-do it. Or if from advice given I get more hides and don't use the black buttons on it at all didn't want to waste the lace. Anyway I hope that from the pictures you can see if I'm heading in the right direction or not. Please offer any advice you might have, DIFFENTLY point out errors made so that I can learn from mistakes. If I'm on the right track and people think the brown/black buttons then black/red buttons will work then I will continue on the project. I'm having a blast, enjoyed the time off to be able to actually sit down and spend some time all in one sitting on a project. I'm also adding a picture that I hope all will enjoy. Its my redneck camper.. Yep thats what me and the dogs weathered out two storms, one with 65 mile hour winds in. My window air made it comfortable at night, my swing to relax on while looking out upon the lake that was right in front of my camp site and you can't go away for a week with the meat smoker. HEMMMMMM chicken, ribs, pork roast and brisket. Thanks for whatever help you can give me on the new project.

That is great gear and I mighty fine looking horse.

Want2braid that was great advice on using the camp fuel and wax, I soaked both the whiskey and red in it today and made the whiskey hide to where I was able to get it cut and beveled. Thank you so much I only let it soak for about 5 mins, not sure if it should have been longer but just that 5 mins worked wonders on it. Like I kept saying about Bevan's tool it was totally my error, once I got the roo stiffened up by soaking then it cut so easy. Would never have got it right without ya want2braid. And Knothead would be proud of my progress also, I had a blood sacrifice today Only one thing to say to you all......

I think I finally got it !!!! Whoot Whoot !!!! This black roo hide was soooooo much better, it didn't have that fluffy stuff and is even thickness. It didn't roll up on me, instead it just went through the bevan tool like butter. Both the cutter and beveler I might be tooting my horn to soon, so here are a few pictures for you all to look at and see what ya think, but in compairson to my previous efforts this one rocks. I also have a couple of questions for want2braid hopefully reads this post or if not if anyone else can answer the questions that would be great. want2braid mentioned a way to get rid of that fluffy stuff with a mixture of camp fuel and wax. I went and bought both and ready to throw that cruddy whiskey hide in but also have a red hide with some fluffy that I need to do also since I notice its fluffy on the back as well. Can I put them in together?? If not can I put the whiskey in then pull it out and put the red one in the same mixture?? When you say leave it in awhile -- How long is awhile??? In Kansas a walkabout would mean walking around the city mall shoping for 1 hour, for Bevan it would mean being in the bush seeing the great outdoors for a year. For my sister when we go fishing for AWHILE if she doesn't catch a fish within the first 5 mins, she is done. Where as for me give me a lawn chair, some drinks, shade and a fish playing with my hook and I'm good for AWHILE. So just wondering since I left that second raw hide flop in the lime for AWHILE, and ended up with a holly mess. HEHE Well I was heading to bed but was so excited about the lace that I just had to share my excitement before I could get any sleep.

Love it, very nice work.

Great work, can't wait to see your next one. Kansas I heard canceled a big horse event due to the horse virus scare. I bet there will be alot of events canceled until they come up with a cure and vacine.

Those are pieces of art. Anyone would be proud to be seen using those. Worth every penny you get for them and more.

There is alot of fluff on the underside where it seems to cut like crud, and it also seems like it has more stretch in those spots also. I might have a bad hide or I may have not ordered the right stuff. Either way I'm not giving up. I greatly appriciate your help and I promise ya that I'm taking all the information that your giving me and trying to get it figured out, so please know that your time and effort is not being wasted. I'm trying, and again thank you for looking at the pictures. Annette

Just like normal some places it cuts good then it will cut like , cut good then cut like:asoapbox: . I hope these pictures will help ya see what the heck I'm doing wrong. As it is I think I'm going to have to try and cut it straight again to get the edges even since it looks like crap. With having to cut the bevel off now I'm going to be close to having wasted the whole hide, since its going to be cut close to or even less then the 1/8 inch that I need. . Hopefully you can see in the pic's that for some reason the hide twist and in some cases will even bevel the top side. This is how I got it set up to start the bevel. Looks pretty good here. Very crappy spot. Another crappy spot. I have more pictures that I can send ya via e-mail if you would like. Or hopefully these will pin-point what the heck I'm doing wrong. I used new blades, for the one side used the one blade and then put another new one for the other side since I just couldn't get a nice even cut. How narrow can roo be cut and still be used?? LOL I've got to laugh so that I don't cry and put more soap in my mouth but see roo4u why I've been dreading this task of cutting lace. LOL Dang it and I was thinking that I was finally going to make some lace for braiding a set of reins. This is going to make me not get much sleep tonight, thinking about what the heck I'm doing wrong. Any help will be greatly appriciated. Thanks in advance. And Yes Bevan I thought the video was great and easy to follow, and I thought that I had it set up like you had yours and as you can see it looks good in some places. So nothing wrong with your video, your tool, but totally its the dummy trying to use it, that just is not getting it right.

Sorry didn't mean to post it twice. Also wanted to mention to everyone the June 2011 Western Horseman has story on Dan Fowler and rawhide braiding.

Here are some more pictures of the next step that I took. I made a straight cut, trying to cut off the wavey and taking the lace down to 1/4 inch. So I guess I'm ready to bevel? My hands begin to shake at the thought of it. Is all still looking ok at this point? Bevan does it look like I'm setting up the tool right for the straight cut?? For some reason the side rolls up on me sometimes causing some spots to not look good and straight but hopefully if I can figure out how to bevel correctly then those spots I'm sure will be cut off (hopefully). I'm down to 1/4 inch wide, my goal is atleast 1/8 inch wide when all said and done. Bevan thanks for taking the time to video tape for us. Greatly appriciated !!!

Here are some more pictures of the next step that I took. I made a straight cut, trying to cut off the wavey and taking the lace down to 1/4 inch. So I guess I'm ready to bevel? My hands begin to shake at the thought of it. Is all still looking ok at this point? Bevan does it look like I'm setting up the tool right for the straight cut?? For some reason the side rolls up on me sometimes causing some spots to not look good and straight but hopefully if I can figure out how to bevel correctly then those spots I'm sure will be cut off (hopefully). I'm down to 1/4 inch wide, my goal is atleast 1/8 inch wide when all said and done. Bevan thanks for taking the time to video tape for us. Greatly appriciated !!!

Well how is it looking so far?? First cut done on all 3 hides cut at 3/8 inch. Is those scrap pieces used for anything?? Do ya continue to cut lace all the way to the middle. As you can see I stopped once it was getting to be pretty tight, Will stretch then do the hard part. I'll try and take pic's of how I got the cutter and beveler set up so that if someone sees me doing it wrong will be able to give me some tips. Expecially with the bevel, for some reason the lace wants to fold up even with me pushing down on it to try and keep it from folding up. But maybe with me starting out with wider lace that might help. We will see. Just wanted to post pic's of what I have so far to show how the process is going. Thanks Annette

Ok a picture will hopefully clear things up. I'm using the belting, I took a string and put it around the belting to come up with 7/8 for the one and 1 inch for the other. Maybe I don't know how to read a tape measure or something but I thought that you took the whole way around and then divided by number of lace you want to use to come up with how wide the lace should be. LOL I just might need to get me one of those digital tape measure or something. Hahaha I even used tape measure with mm just for Bevan. Roo4u I crack myself up, I tried like 20 times to make one of those splitters from that post you sent me and I just don't have the wood tools to get a nice clean even cut at an angle. Since I need a splitter really bad I just need to take the pattern to a wood worker that has the right tools and have them do it. Its darn embarrasing hearing how easy it is to make, or seeing Knotheads easy splitter by using a piece of wood with a notch in it and just a blade and then seeing him split his roo so easy. I'll get there though, I'm not giving up. Watching Knotheads video and how he talks about blood sacrifice I'm kinda suprised I still have my fingers since so far I've been pretty bad at this hobbie. It's kinda like golf though, even when ya shank it in the woods its fun hitting the ball. Thanks for the help, you all are great.

Great well that gives me a idea of where to start, and since I should leave myself room for those mistakes I'll go with 3/8 inch. I wasn't sure how narrow the roo would get when I stretch it, so didn't want to cut it all out and then find out that once I put the stretch on it that it would be to narrow for my project. Thanks again. Hopefully by the middle of June I will have a pair of reins to post a picture of.

Howdy All. I've got 3 roo hides that I've been to chicken to cut so far but with vaccation coming up I'm wanting to get them cut so that I can take the lace with me since I'll have a whole week being spent at the lake with time to braid. I'm wanting to make a pair of reins, so I bought some round leather to use as the core. My plans are to use 8 strands, the core for the reins is 7/8 inch and the romal core is 1 inch. I'm I correct that my strands should be 1/8 inch wide? My other question is when I cut the roo hide how wide should I make that first cut? I have the Gail Hought books and she says 1 1/2 inch wide then stretch it, then make your second cuts (which how wide would that second cut be since it would then need beveled)???? I've watched Knotheads video on how to cut, and it looks like he cuts something close to the final size on the first cut. Also have watched Youtube video showing how to cut roo and again from what I could tell it looked like that first cut was not very wide. So could ya all give me an idea of how wide I should make that first cut so that I'm not wasting hide??? I have the austie cutter and I don't think it would even go 1 1/2 inch wide, I also have the cutter/beveler that Beven got to me so if that helps with knowing what tools I have to come up with an answer.....oh ya I still have no Splitter so inless you think the reins will turn out really cruddy without splitting the roo I don't plan on splitting it. Thanks for any help, greatly appriciate it in advance. Annette

I just bought the Video staring Brian Neubert and he shows how he takes his hides, stretches them out to dry with hair on just like what you are talking about. Just as someone else mentioned put it on something round and take a tool with that same shape and scrape the hair off don't cut it off. Hold the tool up right with your hand on top, rather then holding at an angle and pushing. Him being a pro gets the job don't in about 3 hours. Not sure when the video was made but had some good info in it.

youtube has some short video's that would help ya also. I learn better by watching then by looking at a book, so maybe check that out.